每日简报

用半参数 G 计算估计依从性不可观测时的纵向因果效应AI 解读

Participant noncompliance, in which participants do not follow their assigned treatment protocol, often obscures the causal relationship between treatment and treatment effect in randomized trials. In the longitudinal setting, the G-computation algorithm can adjust for confounding to estimate causal effects. Typically, G-computation assumes that both 1) compliance is observed; and 2) the densities of the confounders can be correctly specified. We aim to develop a…

异质性处理效应的因果保序校准AI 解读

We propose causal isotonic calibration, a novel nonparametric method for calibrating predictors of heterogeneous treatment effects. Furthermore, we introduce cross-calibration, a data-efficient variant of calibration that eliminates the need for hold-out calibration sets. Cross-calibration leverages cross-fitted predictors and generates a single calibrated predictor using all available data. Under weak conditions that do not assume monotonicity, we establish that both causal…

用于因果推断的变量重要性匹配AI 解读

Our goal is to produce methods for observational causal inference that are auditable, easy to troubleshoot, accurate for treatment effect estimation, and scalable to high-dimensional data. We describe a general framework called Model-to-Match that achieves these goals by (i) learning a distance metric via outcome modeling, (ii) creating matched groups using the distance metric, and (iii) using the matched groups to estimate treatment effects. Model-to-Match uses variable…

方差依赖界下渐近最优的固定预算最佳臂识别AI 解读

We investigate the problem of fixed-budget best arm identification (BAI) for minimizing expected simple regret. In an adaptive experiment, a decision maker draws one of multiple treatment arms based on past observations and observes the outcome of the drawn arm. After the experiment, the decision maker recommends the treatment arm with the highest expected outcome. We evaluate the decision based on the expected simple regret, which is the difference between the expected…

稀有结局下的政策学习AI 解读

Machine learning (ML) estimates of conditional average treatment effects (CATE) can guide policy decisions, either by allowing targeting of individuals with beneficial CATE estimates, or as inputs to decision trees that optimise overall outcomes. There is limited information available regarding how well these algorithms perform in real-world policy evaluation scenarios. Using synthetic data, we compare the finite sample performance of different policy learning algorithms,…

CDANs：自相关与非平稳时间序列中的时序因果发现AI 解读

Time series data are found in many areas of healthcare such as medical time series, electronic health records (EHR), measurements of vitals, and wearable devices. Causal discovery, which involves estimating causal relationships from observational data, holds the potential to play a significant role in extracting actionable insights about human health. In this study, we present a novel constraint-based causal discovery approach for autocorrelated and non-stationary time…

配对随机实验中的协变量调整AI 解读

This paper studies inference on the average treatment effect in experiments in which treatment status is determined according to "matched pairs" and it is additionally desired to adjust for observed, baseline covariates to gain further precision. By a "matched pairs" design, we mean that units are sampled i.i.d. from the population of interest, paired according to observed, baseline covariates and finally, within each pair, one unit is selected at random for treatment.…

混杂变量依赖的贝叶斯混合模型：空气污染因果效应的异质性AI 解读

Several epidemiological studies have provided evidence that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) increases mortality risk. Furthermore, some population characteristics (e.g., age, race, and socioeconomic status) might play a crucial role in understanding vulnerability to air pollution. To inform policy, it is necessary to identify groups of the population that are more or less vulnerable to air pollution. In causal inference literature, the Group Average…

卷积核大小与人脸分析 CNN 泛化偏差的联系AI 解读

Training dataset biases are by far the most scrutinized factors when explaining algorithmic biases of neural networks. In contrast, hyperparameters related to the neural network architecture have largely been ignored even though different network parameterizations are known to induce different implicit biases over learned features. For example, convolutional kernel size is known to affect the frequency content of features learned in CNNs. In this work, we present a causal…

用于因果预测的多元贝叶斯动态建模AI 解读

Bayesian forecasting is developed in multivariate time series analysis for causal inference. Causal evaluation of sequentially observed time series data from control and treated units focuses on the impacts of interventions using contemporaneous outcomes in control units. Methodological developments here concern multivariate dynamic models for time-varying effects across multiple treated units with explicit foci on sequential learning and aggregation of intervention effects.…

大量弱工具变量下的第一阶段 F 检验AI 解读

A widely adopted approach for detecting weak instruments is to use the first-stage $F$ statistic. While this method was developed with a fixed number of instruments, its performance with many instruments remains insufficiently explored. We show that the first-stage $F$ test exhibits distorted sizes for detecting many weak instruments, regardless of the choice of pretested estimators or Wald tests. These distortions occur due to the inadequate approximation using classical…

结果延迟实现时治疗效应的分解与解释AI 解读

This paper studies settings where the analyst is interested in identifying and estimating the average \emph{direct} causal effect of a binary treatment on an outcome. We consider a setup in which the outcome realization does not get immediately realized after the treatment assignment, a feature that is ubiquitous in empirical settings. The period between the treatment and the realization of the outcome allows other observed actions to occur and affect the outcome. In this…

强化学习数据收集后的统计推断AI 解读

We study estimation and inference using data collected by reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. These algorithms adaptively experiment by interacting with individual units over multiple stages, updating their strategies based on past outcomes. Our goal is to evaluate a counterfactual policy after data collection and estimate structural parameters, such as dynamic treatment effects, that support credit assignment and quantify the impact of early actions on final outcomes.…

用机器学习测量气候适应AI 解读

I measure adaptation to climate change by comparing elasticities from short-run and long-run changes in damaging weather. I propose a debiased machine learning approach to flexibly measure these elasticities in panel settings. In a simulation exercise, I show that debiased machine learning has considerable benefits relative to standard machine learning or ordinary least squares, particularly in high-dimensional settings. I then measure adaptation to damaging heat exposure in…

基于梯度提升树的异质性处理效应增广学习AI 解读

Heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) based on patients' genetic or clinical factors are of significant interest to precision medicine. Simultaneously modeling HTE and corresponding main effects for randomized clinical trials with high-dimensional predictive markers is challenging. Motivated by the modified covariates approach, we propose a two-stage statistical learning procedure for estimating HTE with optimal efficiency augmentation, generalizing to arbitrary interaction…

依赖删失下治疗效应的析因生存分析AI 解读

Factorial analyses offer a powerful nonparametric means to detect main or interaction effects among multiple treatments. For survival outcomes, e.g. from clinical trials, such techniques can be adopted for comparing reasonable quantifications of treatment effects. The key difficulty to solve in survival analysis concerns the proper handling of censoring. So far, all existing factorial analyses for survival data were developed under the independent censoring assumption, which…

不完整矩阵值时间序列的网络自回归AI 解读

We study the dynamics of matrix-valued time series with observed network structures by proposing a matrix network autoregression model with row and column networks of the subjects. We incorporate covariate information and a low rank intercept matrix. We allow incomplete observations in the matrices and the missing mechanism can be covariate dependent. To estimate the model, a two-step estimation procedure is proposed. The first step aims to estimate the network…

少量处理簇下双重差分推断的扩展AI 解读

In settings with few treated units, Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimators are not consistent, and are not generally asymptotically normal. This poses relevant challenges for inference. While there are inference methods that are valid in these settings, some of these alternatives are not readily available when there is variation in treatment timing and heterogeneous treatment effects; or for deriving uniform confidence bands for event-study plots. We present alternatives…

用于处理效应推广的 Group LASSO 变量选择方法AI 解读

Often in public health, we are interested in the treatment effect of an intervention on a population that is systemically different from the experimental population the intervention was originally evaluated in. When treatment effect heterogeneity is present in a randomized controlled trial, generalizing the treatment effect from this experimental population to a target population of interest is a complex problem; it requires the characterization of both the treatment effect…

网络干扰下使用不依赖模型的协变量进行回归调整AI 解读

When estimating a Global Average Treatment Effect (GATE) under network interference, units can have widely different relationships to the treatment depending on a combination of the structure of their network neighborhood, the structure of the interference mechanism, and how the treatment was distributed in their neighborhood. In this work, we introduce a sequential procedure to generate and select graph- and treatment-based covariates for GATE estimation under regression…

持久协变量下分位数预测回归模型的结构突变检测AI 解读

We propose an econometric environment for structural break detection in nonstationary quantile predictive regressions. We establish the limit distributions for a class of Wald and fluctuation type statistics based on both the ordinary least squares estimator and the endogenous instrumental regression estimator proposed by Phillips and Magdalinos (2009a, Econometric Inference in the Vicinity of Unity. Working paper, Singapore Management University). Although the asymptotic…

具有因果解释的元分析：明确的因果效应与两个案例AI 解读

Meta-analysis is commonly used to combine results from multiple clinical trials, but traditional meta-analysis methods do not refer explicitly to a population of individuals to whom the results apply and it is not clear how to use their results to assess a treatment's effect for a population of interest. We describe recently-introduced causally-interpretable meta-analysis methods and apply their treatment effect estimators to two individual-participant data sets. These…

存在隐藏混杂时的连续时间处理效应估计AI 解读

Estimating treatment effects plays a crucial role in causal inference, having many real-world applications like policy analysis and decision making. Nevertheless, estimating treatment effects in the longitudinal setting in the presence of hidden confounders remains an extremely challenging problem. Recently, there is a growing body of work attempting to obtain unbiased ITE estimates from time-dynamic observational data by ignoring the possible existence of hidden…

破解孟德尔随机化的赢家诅咒：再随机化逆方差加权估计量AI 解读

Developments in genome-wide association studies and the increasing availability of summary genetic association data have made the application of two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) with summary data increasingly popular. Conventional two-sample MR methods often employ the same sample for selecting relevant genetic variants and for constructing final causal estimates. Such a practice often leads to biased causal effect estimates due to the well known "winner's curse"…